Exploring the City

            Today was a pretty busy day, but it was sweet! We started off with breakfast at 7:00 and then our Jewish Civilization and Arabic and Islamic Civilization classes. Those were intense! There is a whole ton of reading, and it is super hard to understand. Class is really interesting, but a lot of it goes over my head. I hope I will start to understand better and I’m excited to learn all they have to teach us. The professors are so awesome and knowledgeable. After lunch I had my first Hebrew class, which was so fun! The alphabet is ridiculous, but it is really cool. Our professor is so fun and she kept telling us that Hebrew makes so much more sense and we will learn how to write and read and speak and translate. I’m thinking that will be just a few phrases . . . Today we just learned 2 letters, a couple expressions and a song, which was stuck in my head all day!

            After class we went and walked around the city for a few hours and that was really cool! We walked through the Old City and went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is considered one of the most important places in the Christian world, and definitely the holiest Christian site in Jerusalem. The different parts of the church are controlled/maintained by six different religions, and apparently that causes issues sometimes. The Armenians might get upset if the Catholics sweep some of their stairs and silly things like that. Inside the church they have all kinds of things related to the end of Christ’s life and His resurrection. The main thing we saw was the Anointment Stone, where it is believed they laid Christ’s body after the crucifixion and anointed it for burial. We didn’t get to really see the other things because it was packed with people, so we will go back. People also believe that the church also houses the site of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. Protestants generally accept the location of Christ’s burial at the Garden Tomb in another location in the city.

            After coming back today people were saying that if there was one thing they could have right now it would be a lot more money. I’m pretty impressed with myself that I didn’t buy anything today- I think I need to hold off for a while and make sure what things I really want. There are so many cool/cute//hot/rad things. The merchants in the city are hilarious and we were wondering where they have learned some of their English. One guy called everything radical or rad and told a girl she had a “hot smile.” They all tell you they will give you a special price because of your beautiful eyes or hair. And they all ask us about Utah/Salt Lake City and try to get the Mormons to come to their shops. I’m thinking they know from experience how much money the students tend to spend on souvenirs in the Old City.

It is pretty stinkin hot. They keep talking about the dry, desert climate, so I can understand where the heat thing comes from but I’m left slightly confused about the 84% humidity we had goin on today. Despite all our security warnings and such, being out in the city feels mostly safe to me. The people have all been nice so far. Pickpockets are supposed to hang around, but my nifty fanny pack seems pretty secure. I’d say the biggest threat is probably the maniac drivers speeding around and honking their horns constantly. 

I was thinking that everything here was completely different from the United States, until I noticed some interesting similarities!

1. Thank goodness most people speak English pretty well. Arabic and Hebrew are pretty crazy, and I will probably only be able to speak a few words of Hebrew by the end.

2. The kids are totally cute, and they like a lot of the same things. I saw like five little girls today decked out in Dora the Explorer gear. The boys seem to like Spiderman and soccer. I saw some Sponge Bob toys, and in our cafeteria we have yogurt with Sponge Bob on the package. (It’s pretty gross)

3. You can find Coke, Fanta (orange, to be specific), and Snickers, along with a few other American foods.

4. In West Jerusalem on Ben Yehuda Street they have at least one McDonald’s and two Burger Kings. Have you ever seen a kosher Burger King before?

5. People wear Crocs. They’re all over. Is anyone else to find out that Crocs and their imitations have made it to the Middle East? I sure am!

6. Some of the early teen-age boys were walking around playing American music- very different from the music played in the shops!

I will have to continue with lists as I see more funny things=)